Nighttime Bridges
by Ember Nickel
Summary: Leia's dreams have never been all her own.


For fleurlb in the May The 4th Be With You exchange 2017. I was going to write a Bail fic for challenge purposes and then this happened, oops.

It's rare enough that Bail has time to eat breakfast with Leia before starting his day that he happily listens to her chitchat, idly taking it in while keeping one ear tuned to the news broadcast streaming on low volume just in case another edict needs response. Once, he feared flashpoints arising, crises requiring immediate intervention. Now, the threat of complacency is its own shadow.

"...and there was a lake," Leia is saying, "a big one, and she stomped over to it, all mad."

Carefully, Bail asks, "Who?"

"The pretty lady. In my dream."

This isn't how he imagined the conversation would go. He had harbored hopes that his daughter would take a shine to history on her own, discover the revolutionary mindset of the senator from Naboo in her independent research. He held onto secret, more desperate, hopes that some day when the galaxy was free, he'd be able to tell her the full story of her birth. Bail isn't sure which he fears more—that the galaxy will never change course, or that he _will_ , and in the name of freedom seize Leia onto a path not of her choosing. "I had a dream like that too," he admits.

"Really?" Leia asks.

Bail nods. "About an old friend of mine. When I get home, I'll tell you about her."

* * *

Leia stares down at a paragraph about hyperspace physics for at least the third time, trying not to glaze over. To no avail; she's too tired to focus any longer. Switching the reader off, she yawns and stands up.

"Everything all right?" Breha calls over. She's on leave for some ceremonial event, and Leia loves when her mother's around, but…

Well, she'll only keep pestering if Leia tries to dodge it. Mystical powers she may not have, but a monarch lives by educated guesses. "I dreamed of my birth mother again last night."

"Oh!" Breha smiles. "It was pleasant, I hope?"

"Yes," Leia says suspiciously. "Is that okay?"

She'd been in a big room, full of faces human and otherwise—like the Imperial Senate on Coruscant, where Father worked, but different somehow. Father had come in, and everyone had applauded. The scene had shifted, and she and Father had struck up a conversation, exchanging laughs, handshakes, advice.

"Why wouldn't it be?" Breha asks.

 _Because I'm supposed to keep her a secret. Because I'm supposed to keep this—thing I do—with dreams, by accident, a secret. Because of all the secrets you and Father keep—wars and rebellions and missions and uprisings—you won't let me take up arms yet._ "Well, you're my mother too, aren't you? I don't want whatever is behind the dreams to not recognize you as my mother."

Breha laughs. "Was I in the dream?"

Leia takes a moment, remembering. "Yes! You were at a computer screen, pushing buttons. Father's face came up on the screen, you selected it, and there were some others...How did you know?"

"That was my dream you saw. I was remembering voting for your father for the Senate the first time, it must have gotten switched around the way dreams do."

"An election?" Leia gasps. "A free one?"

Breha shakes her head. "Most little girls dream of being princesses."

* * *

Leia wouldn't have called herself a close friend of Cassian Andor, but in retrospect, she supposes it makes sense. The operatives don't spend a lot of time together; he's based out of the Yavin headquarters and needs to blend in throughout the galaxy, collecting information under one identity after the next and then erasing his covers as quickly as he acquires them. Leia, in contrast, has to be seen, continuing to keep up appearances on Alderaan and in the Senate to give her excuses to carry out "diplomacy" elsewhere. But he's probably spent as much time relaying information to her as anyone else, and compared to the other people he speaks to, there aren't that many who know his real name.

So when they happen to be posted together in Coruscant, it takes her a while to realize that it's his nightmare of a battle in hyperspace. For someone who almost never sees the direct results of full-scale space combat, the ultimate horror is the Empire's violence intruding somewhere where ships should be safe from each other. Complex molecules fused in the cores of stars—composing lifeforms, droids, and ships alike—erupt into pure energy, and when the destruction is complete, reality itself seems to ripple and tear. The memories linger long after Leia wakes with a start.

* * *

"Sometimes I don't think your Wookie likes me very much," Leia mentions.

"And why's that?" Han asks.

"Er..." Perhaps she hasn't thought this through. Is _I never get a psychic connection to his dreams_ a reasonable answer, or will it just make Han think she's being ridiculous?

"He's just playing hard to get," Han smirks.

"Now that's not true," says Leia. "Unlike you, when I ask him what he's dreaming about, he's never once said me without so many layers of Hoth-appropriate clothing on."

Han gives a snort. "You think Wookiees can dream on a human timescale?"

Trying to hide her curiosity, Leia asks, "Why wouldn't they?"

"Completely different timescales. A night for a Wookiee is like a little catnap for us. They don't have time to get deep into real sleep..."

"REM sleep?"

"Whatever you scientific types call it, unless they're on a planet like Kashyyyk with a night more their speed."

"Huh. That makes sense," says Leia. "Doesn't he miss it? Not dreaming?"

"Not really," says Han. "Last time he was home I think he dreamed about showing up unprepared to an orbital trajectories exam. Never mind that he hasn't been to an academy in decades and decades."

* * *

On the flight from Bespin, on the journey to Tatooine, and at various moments in between, Leia finds herself distracted by visions. Glimpses of the past only, but during her waking day as often as when she sleeps. The garbage chute of the Death Star. Medals gleaming in her hands on Yavin IV. Alliance members swerving out of her way in the Hoth tunnels, too used to her and Han's pointless bickering to take any more notice of them. She shakes all these off, annoyed. They have a rescue to plan and, it seems, another superweapon to dispose of. She does not have time to be nostalgic, no matter how much it feels like she was not young even then.

Only later, once Tatooine is behind them and they have nothing more to do than explode the Death Star, which, having escaped from Jabba's machinations, feels almost de rigeur—they've done it before, after all—does she wonder whether it was not her own thoughts flickering through her mind all along. As draining as all her previous missions had been, she had never sought refuge in the past then, consciously or not. Who's to say that cryosleep does not have its own dreams? And trust Han to dream of her to sustain him.

* * *

The night before descending to Endor's moon, Leia finds herself within a nightmare that at first could be anyone's. The space battle goes terribly for the Alliance; ships are shredded, the Imperial Fleet sails in masterful formation, and eventually the new battle station comes online. In excruciating detail, she witnesses the Millennium Falcon crash to the moon, and wonders whether this is just a dream of her own.

Then she's looking down at an orange planet, its defenses ravaged by the new Death Star. A moment later, it's blown apart. Leia senses, not the grief she had felt at the loss of Alderaan, but a blow to someone's pride. Defeat? This is not quite Endor…

In the morning she performs a few surreptitious searches before heading out, as it is clearly not the homeworld of anyone she's grown close to. After a few false starts, she's pleasantly surprised to discover the image of Tanaab. Lando, it seems, is committed to the rebellion and as close a friend to her as anyone, and his fears are not of questioning his loyalty, but only of having his previous victory tainted by falling short on the day.

Han had told her once, "Don't tell anyone I'm not just in it for the medals, they'll start getting ideas." Perhaps Lando is cut from the same cloth. She thinks it might not be a good idea to raise the issue just yet. Anyway, once they reach Endor Luke approaches her, and suddenly it's the reality of her older dreams that she needs to call to mind, seen and expounded on a planet now in ruins.

* * *

Luke journeys through the galaxy, as often searching for something ancient as creating something new. Leia is never far from him wherever he lands, the bond between them strengthened as much by willpower as innate sensitivity. "My lightsaber is like the Force itself," Luke explains. "No matter what it has done before, it can be used for evil as well as good."

"My dreams—could they be evil?"

"Not unless you grow close to someone who dreams of something evil. Now, if you were to train..."

"I don't _want_ to," Leia repeats. Luke doesn't press the issue, but she wonders how much control he has over what he shows her—the wonders of the worlds he sees, the students he thrills to meet.

She doesn't have an answer until the day Luke disappears. After the massacre at the nascent school, when Luke can no longer live with his failure, the dreams stop. For Leia, who lived nineteen years never imagining she had a brother, the undisturbed nights are a part of the grief she cannot explain, so trivial compared to everything else she has lost. Almost it makes her want to study and figure out how to break through to Luke on her own, reforge the connection, but how can she? There is no one from whom to learn.

* * *

General-Princess-Senator Leia Organa Solo infiltrates the garbage chute of the first Death Star. After her unwarranted captivity there, she's taken the initiative to memorize the system codes to shut down operations. Buoying herself above the filth therein, she reaches a security checkpoint and singlehandedly obtains access to the central computer. The waste processing system momentarily halts. After arranging with a friendly recycling entity, of a species who she'd made contact with on a secret espionage mission, to make their escape, she downloads a copy of the Death Star blueprints for good measure. Soon, the party is sneaking out the door.

No.

She shoots down a walker on Hoth, then, braving freezing temperatures, takes command of its downed cockpit to broadcast false coordinates to its allies. Moments later, confused Imperial troops are shooting each other in a burst of friendly fire.

Not exactly.

She cruises on her speeder bike to where an Ewok invites her to a summit of his companions. She is fluent in their language, and when she mentions in passing that she happens to have defeated Jabba the Hutt on Tatooine, they immediately enlist to ally with her. After rounding up her fellow Alliance members, they begin making plans to defeat the Imperial shield.

Leia groggily wakes, coming to herself. It's all well and good that Poe Dameron has signed on with the Resistance, but really, could he not choose some less sensationalist holovids?

* * *

C-3PO is quiet but aware the entire time the fussy metadroid installs his red arm. "Ah," he says, flexing it out, "splendid."

"Thank you very much," says Leia.

"Of course," chirps the metadroid. "Please run debugging protocol N-32 to make sure there were no anomalies during repair."

Leia has no idea what's being referenced, but C-3PO unquestioningly complies. This appears to be a series of exercises designed to test his full range of motion, and while he's slow—they all are—he comes away with no complaints. "All appears to be in order."

"Very well," says the metadroid.

As they ride the train back, Leia asks curiously, "It didn't—hurt?"

"Of course not," C-3PO responds.

"That must be useful." Giving Luke a new arm, after all, had required his unconsciousness first.

"Were you expecting me to translate during the procedure?"

"I suppose not," says Leia.

"Then it's all the same to you, isn't it?"

"Touche."

C-3PO never sleeps. His life is duty, always on-task and waiting to leap into action (or, better, run from the fray). She supposes she's not missing much by not feeling his dreams. She cannot imagine a droid as precise and meticulous as C-3PO would ever need to sort out his thoughts overnight, piecing together hopes and memories and faded faces into one impossible collage.

But then, for all his playful attitude, R2-D2 has been in a stasis of sorts, as impenetrable as cryosleep. And from him, too, she has felt nothing at all.

* * *

Another nightmare, the violent kind she hasn't visited for a generation. The stars going out, collapsing into dust, and then a terrified, human vulnerability.

Not Luke's: she would know her brother's fingerprints in the night anywhere. Not Poe's: the commander, having destroyed Starkiller Base, no longer fears its strength. He does not regret his actions, but knows that every decision in battle is full of gravity. Perhaps someday Rey or Finn will think of her as a dear mentor. Perhaps they already do. Perhaps in Rey's journey, in Finn's recovery, they still fear the power of First Order's planet-killer. Or the fear that they might turn back to the plans that failed the first time. Why not, if history is repeating itself?

But as Leia faces the morning, she dares to believe that some part of Ben still thinks of her as family. For all he has done, he is not as strong as Luke in some ways; he cannot or will not lock her out of sensing his terror at the First Order's weaponry. Weaponry that the Resistance, her Resistance, had defeated.

That hope is enough to carry her through the nights. Until then, the waking day is hers alone.


End file.
